“No!”
Luka motioned to Yuri and Yuri passed him his handgun. Luka leveled it at my head. Then he glanced at Arianna. “Close the door,” he told her in English. “Don’t look.”
She shook her head, looking between us. “Luka, don’t,” she said in a small voice.
“Close the door!” he said firmly.
Arianna shook her head in dismay, but closed the door of the SUV.
“He told you to kill one of our enemies, but you refused,” Luka told me. “He thinks you’re conspiring, maybe with Konstantin. Maybe you have a plan to overthrow me. Maybe something else. It doesn’t matter.” He cocked the gun. “I cannot have traitors in our family.”
I talked fast, my heart thumping in my chest. I was scared...but not with the fear of dying. It was the look on Luka’s face that terrified me, the thought that I’d die with him thinking I’d betrayed him. “Do you know who it was, I was meant to kill?”
Luka shook his head. “I don’t care.”
And he pulled the trigger.
Gabriella
I couldn’t understand their words, but I understood the tone. I watched as the man who must be Luka pointed the gun at Alexei. I watched right up until the point that his finger tightened on the trigger and then I couldn’t stand it anymore. I jumped up and burst out through the bushes, right in front of them. “Wait!” I yelled.
A shot rang out.
Everyone stared at me in shock.
At first, I wondered if maybe the bullet had hit me because Alexei seemed to be okay. But there was no pain, just a ringing in my ears. Then Alexei gingerly put his hand to his ear and it came away wet with blood. Luka’s hand had jerked and the bullet had just grazed his earlobe.
Half of the guards pointed their guns at me. The rest kept them on Alexei. I put my hands in the air.
“It was her,” said Alexei in English, panting with tension. “Nikolai told me to kill her.”
Luka frowned at me. I could get a proper look at him, now. He was huge, as big as Alexei—did they put something in the water, in Russia? He had similar jet-black hair, but his features were different, brutally handsome, noble and even regal in a way that reminded me of Konstantin. You’d know which one was the leader in a heartbeat.
“Why?” asked Luka suspiciously. He kept his gun pointing at Alexei, but he’d switched to English, presumably for my benefit, and that had to be a good sign.
“Nikolai is the one who’s betraying you,” said Alexei. “Gabriella is a hacker. She found evidence on his computer—that’s why he wanted her dead.”
“Betray me?” Luka echoed. “Nikolai has been loyal for twenty years.”
I shook my head. “He wants to move into trafficking women.”
“I don’t allow that,” Luka said firmly.
“That’s why he means to kill you,” said Alexei. “You, your father, Arianna—your cousins, too.”
For the first time, Luka lowered his gun a little. He turned to glance at the SUV. “Ridiculous,” he said at last. But he sounded shaken.
“He’s hired a guy they call Seventeen—he works for a guy who works for Konstantin,” I said. “Seventeen’s going to kill your whole family—here, today. Konstantin will get the blame and it’ll start a gang war. Nikolai will step in as the new leader.”
Luka stared at me. Then he turned and stared at the man who’d been driving the SUV, an older guy. He must be Yuri, the head bodyguard. Alexei had told me about him. Yuri considered for a long time and then gave a sideways nod of his head. “Nikolai is ambitious,” he grunted.
Luka looked at me and then at Alexei. “If this is true,” he said slowly, “then how did you find out about it? Why did you betray Nikolai in the first place? Why didn’t you just kill her?”
It took Alexei a few seconds to form the words. “I fell in love with her,” he said at last.
I thought Luka’s eyes were going to bug out of his head. “You?”
The door of the SUV opened and Arianna slid out. “It’s true,” she said.
Everyone stared at her.
“I can see the way he looks at her,” Arianna said. “I think he’s telling the truth.”
Luka sighed in frustration. I could tell part of him wanted to tell her to get back in the car, but that, equally, he knew he was way out of his depth. He cocked his head at Arianna as if to say, are you sure?
Arianna nodded and I nodded, too.
Luka very slowly lowered his gun. The guards did the same. I let out a long breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. My whole body was shaky with tension.
“Where is everyone?” Alexei asked. “Where’s your father and your cousins?”
“Already here,” said Luka. “In the house. Nikolai’s here, too.”
“Then you need to get them out,” said Alexei. “Seventeen could already be here.”
“He’s psychotic,” I said. I looked at Arianna, remembering the sawmill. “You can’t let him anywhere near your family.”
Yuri shook his head irritably. “We have over twenty guards here. Well-trained men. Well-armed.”
“Nikolai will have thought of that,” said Alexei. He looked at the handful of guards that were with us. “Where are the rest?”
“Guardhouse,” Yuri replied, “being assigned their weapons.” Then he glanced at Luka, his expression growing nauseous. He grabbed a radio off one of the guards and started to speak.
There was a sound like a giant’s foot hitting the ground. The noise echoed through the trees, followed by a warm wind and the patter of things hitting the ground. A cloud of smoke started to rise in the distance and I could just make out the sound of people screaming. Yuri stared towards where the guardhouse had been, his face pale.
Luka turned to look at Alexei, his eyes wide with shock. Then he gave Yuri back his handgun and took one of the sub-machine guns from a guard. “Get Arianna to safety,” he told Yuri. “I’m going to get the others.”
Alexei stepped forward. “I can help,”
I almost prayed for Luka to turn him down, but he slowly nodded. Alexei took a handgun from one of the guards. The smoke from the explosion was billowing through the trees towards us, now, and I tried to shut out the screams of the injured. I stepped towards Alexei.
“No,” Alexei told me. “You go with Arianna.”
I shook my head, panicked. “Don’t leave me again!” I grabbed at his shirt, pulling myself close to his chest.
“I don’t want to...but I can’t protect you in a firefight,” he said gently. He took my hands in his much bigger ones. “Yuri is a great bodyguard and the SUV is armored. It’s the best place for you.”
I nodded reluctantly, but it felt wrong. Yuri herded me towards the SUV and pushed me into the back alongside a white-faced Arianna. The last thing I saw was Luka throwing Alexei a radio and the two of them setting off into the forest towards the house.
My chest closed up as I realized that might be the last time I saw him.
Gabriella
Yuri turned the SUV around and we started to bounce over the rutted, pitted track. Inside, everything was cream leather and polished chrome. It felt as if we’d already been spirited away from the muddy forest. Alexei was right—we probably were safe in there.
But I couldn’t get the idea that this was wrong out of my head. I should be helping him, not running away.
I looked at Yuri’s reflection in the rear view mirror. He looked grim...and shaken. Like me, he was probably still trying to wrap his head around what had happened to the guards. How many had been killed in that explosion—all of them, save for the handful near the checkpoint? Fifteen men...more? All just to clear the way for more murder…. I closed my eyes, my head swimming with the brutality of it. This is not my world.
But it was Alexei’s world. If I wanted to save him, I couldn’t retreat down into the warm safety that I knew.
I opened my eyes and looked across at Arianna. She was an American, too. She must have faced this same decision with Luka. She gl
anced at me and our eyes met.
“We can’t just let them go in there alone,” I blurted.
Yuri heard and shook his head. “Is better you stay here.” He glanced outside. White smoke from the explosion was curling along the ground like mist. “Is no place for you two.”
“You don’t know Seventeen!” I snapped. “He’s not just a hitman, he’s crazy. Literally psychotic.”
“Luka said to take care of you,” said Yuri tersely. “I am taking care.”
“He needs us,” said Arianna quietly. “She’s right, Yuri. We have to help. Irina and Lizaveta are in there. And Luka’s dad. The men can’t do it all on their own.” She glanced at me and nodded and I felt a warm little glow of unity—our own minor revolution, right there on the back seat. I liked her already.
Yuri drove on in silence for a few seconds. But his shoulders were hunching as if he was trying to shut us out. We were getting to him. “There is nothing you can do,” he said at last.
“Maybe there is,” I said. “Does this place have a security station, where all the cameras route to? Somewhere not in the house?”
Yuri nodded reluctantly. “Da.”
“Take us to it. I can use the cameras, warn them of danger.”
Yuri shook his head. “It is secure computer. Passwords and codes. Only the guards had access.”
For the first time all day, I felt solid ground under my feet. “Trust me. I can get in.”
“And I’ll help,” said Arianna. She shot a look at me. “Everything’ll be in Russian.”
I hadn’t thought of that. “Okay. Yuri, let’s go.”
Yuri said nothing. He kept driving in sullen silence for another five seconds and then he muttered something in Russian and swung the SUV around so hard we bounced against the doors.
“What did he say?” I murmured to Arianna.
She leaned close. “American women will be the death of me.”
Alexei
The guards from the checkpoint had run on ahead. As Luka and I approached the open area in front of the house, three shots rang out from the west and three of the guards fell, tumbling to the ground like rag dolls. Seventeen, using his sniper rifle again. The rest of us flattened ourselves against trees.
“My father will be in his office, on the far side of the house,” said Luka. “My cousins will most likely be upstairs, in their room.”
I nodded. “I’ll get them. You get your father.”
I’d been in dangerous situations plenty of times in the army. I’d felt fear before, but now it was different.
I’d thought that all I was good for was killing, and part of that life was knowing you could die at any time. Death from a bullet is usually quick and it hadn’t scared me…because I’d never had anything to lose, until now.
I’d always thought of myself as strong and my victims weak, because they were caught up in their lives and I was wholly focused on my work, without anything else to distract me. Now, it felt like it was the other way around. I didn’t feel strong; I felt as though I’d wasted every day until I’d met her. I thought of the strawberry scent of Gabriella’s hair and the little gasps she made when she came. I wanted more. More soft beds, more breakfasts, more life...but mainly, more of her.
The house was eerily still. The white smoke from the explosion hadn’t penetrated in here and the place was still set up for guests: a white linen tablecloth and silver cutlery, magazines artfully fanned out on a coffee table. Hopefully the servants were safe, hiding in their quarters, and could stay there until this was all over. I crept upstairs.
Just as I reached the top, the door in front of me exploded, torn apart by a shotgun blast. I threw myself down on my face, half on the landing and half on the stairs. Chunks of wood pattered down onto my back. I looked up at the hole in the door: if I’d been even one step further, the blast would have taken my head off.
“Stop right there!” a female voice yelled in Russian. “Or you can have the other barrel!”
Irina. She must have heard the stairs creak. “Don’t shoot!” I yelled back, still hugging the floor. “I’m here to help!”
“I don’t recognize your voice!” she snapped back. “You’re not one of the guards!”
“I work for Luka! You’ve never met me, but I’ve been his bodyguard a few times.” Then I twisted round on the stairs to look behind me—had that been a noise, downstairs...or just my imagination? I was a sitting duck if anyone came up the stairs behind me. “Look, we have to go! Luka sent me to get you out of here!”
“He’d send someone we know!” Irina yelled.
Another noise from downstairs, and this time I was sure. I dropped my voice. “Irina, the guards are all dead. And the man who blew up the guardhouse is downstairs. We need to leave right now.”
“Don’t come in here!” she snapped. “I swear I’ll blow your head off.”
I could feel the frustration and panic coiling together, pushing me to do something stupid. I was utterly trapped. Another few minutes and Seventeen would find me and shoot me in the back. If I moved forward, Irina would shoot me in the front. I couldn’t solve this with force, or shouting. Nothing in the army or the years since had prepared me for this.
What would Gabriella do?
She’d be quiet and calm. She’d listen.
Against every instinct, I closed my eyes.
We. He’d send someone we know, Irina had said. I strained my ears and could just make out the sound of sobbing. Irina must have Lizaveta with her, the eight year-old. God, both of them must be terrified!
Talk. Gabriella would talk to her.
“Listen,” I said. “My name is Alexei. Alexei Borinskov. Your name is Irina, yes? You’re...how old, now—nineteen?”
“Twenty!” she said defensively.
“Twenty, okay. Listen...I know that you’re scared. I know that you want to be with Luka—and Arianna. My—uh—girlfriend is American, too. Her name’s Gabriella. She’s in Luka’s SUV with Arianna and Yuri right now, I can take you to them. But we’re going to have to trust each other. So I’m going to stand up, very slowly, with my hands empty, and walk to the door...and you’re not going to shoot me. Okay?”
Silence.
I could hear footsteps approaching downstairs. Now or never. I climbed gingerly to my feet, shoving the handgun into the back of my pants and raising my hands above my head. I stepped towards the door, bracing myself...but no shot came.
Through the hole in the door, I could see into the room. Irina, a slender girl with platinum-blonde hair, was crouched behind an armchair, the shotgun poking out over the top. Behind her, peeking nervously out of a closet, was the honey-haired, big-eyed Lizaveta.
“You look evil,” said Irina. “But I don’t think you are.” She stood up.
At that moment, I heard the stairs creak as someone started up them. I glanced around quickly—the bedroom the girls had been hiding in had no other exit, so staying there wasn’t an option. I waved them to me and Irina scooped up Lizaveta and followed. We hurried across the landing and made it through a heavy oak door just as Seventeen rounded the top of the stairs.
It was the first time I’d seen him since the sawmill. He’d abandoned his rifle and was brandishing a shotgun. When he saw me, the scariest thing was that there was none of the rage or hatred that any normal man would display. He raised the shotgun as emotionlessly as a man lifting a fly swatter to kill a bug.
I slammed the door shut and locked it. A shotgun blast tore into the wood from the other side, splintering it but not quite breaking through. Another few shots, though, and it would be shredded.
We were in a hallway, with three doors to choose from. Nikolai might well be lying in wait, especially if Seventeen had reported my position. I might lead the girls right into an ambush.
The shotgun fired again and the first holes appeared in the door.
Gabriella
Yuri led us down into the security station, his gun drawn. It was a concrete box that had been sunk into the gro
und, with only a few tiny windows high on the walls for light. Screens stood ready to show views from CCTV cameras...but they were all dark. A solitary computer screen glowed.
“As I told you, all locked up,” said Yuri bitterly. “We would need them to unlock it.”
That was the part I was trying hard not to look at. Sitting at the control desk were two guards. Both had been shot in the back—probably Seventeen’s first move, when he’d arrived.
“Just...help me move them,” I said, my stomach churning. Together, we heaved the bodies out of their chairs and laid them gently against the wall. Shouldn’t I say something, or something? They were somebody’s brothers, maybe somebody’s fathers.... I settled for closing their eyes.
Back at the desk, Yuri and Arianna leaned over me as I went to work. Arianna translated the Russian and I started to skirt my way around the security protocols. Yuri got bored after thirty seconds and went to guard the door, which left the two of us in the gloom. For long minutes, the only sound was her voice telling me what the machine was asking for and the skittering of my fingers on the keys.
I sidestepped the last layer of security and the screens suddenly came to life: hallways and reception rooms, garages and a swimming pool.
Then I saw Alexei. He was in a hallway, sheltering a young woman who in turn was carrying a child. The door next to them was slowly splintering from gunfire. My stomach shot up into my throat. “Alexei!” I yelled.
“He can’t hear you,” said Arianna. “Use this.” She threw me a radio.
I tried the channels until I got him. “Alexei?”
I saw him pull the radio from his belt. “Gabriella?!”
“I can see you on the cameras. I’m going to guide you out.” One screen showed a map. “Go right down to the end of the hallway and through the last door on your left.”
“Do you see Nikolai anywhere?”
I scanned the screens. “No. You’re clear. Go, I’ll keep watch!”
Kissing My Killer Page 25
